IL Instructional Archive: Step Back with Trevor Tierney

Below read about how Trevor Tierney and a host of goalie legends have played back on the goal line. Here’s some tips from the former Goalie of the Year on the fundamentals of good goalie play and the keys to playing back in goal. This article first appeared in the August 2004 issue of Inside Lacrosse.

INTRODUCTION

Goalie is the one position that coaches struggle most with to teach because few have ever played before. As a result, some coaches try to make the goalie position more complicated than it really is. They turn it into a complex set of rules, like a golf pro teaching the perfect swing.

But the bottom line for goalies at any level is to see the ball and save it.

In order to do that, though, there are some fundamentals that goalies should learn first so they put themselves in the correct position to make those saves. It’s very important that goalies not get in the net until they are able to catch and throw adequately. Many goalies at the top level of the game (like Long Island’s Brian Dougherty and Philadelphia’s Greg Cattrano) have the best sticks on the field and that allows them to make great saves and clear the ball effectively. Without those stick skills and the following fundamentals, youth goalies will be at a severe disadvantage.

STANCE

The first thing that a youth goalie should work on is stance. The goalie stance is an athletic one that allows you to be in a comfortable position that you can react out of in a split second. It should look somewhat like a linebacker’s stance on the football field. First, your legs should be a little wider than shoulder-width apart. This provides a solid, athletic base with good balance and also takes up some room down low in the goal. If you keep your legs close together, it gives up a lot of room for low shots and also means that you have to take huge steps to get across the goal.

Next, your knees should be bent depending on what feels comfortable athletically. Some goalies, like Cattrano, play with their knees only slightly bent, while goalies like myself play with their knees extremely bent and squatted down low. It’s usually easier for most athletes to pop out of a squatted position for a high shot than it is to squat down low from an upright position for a low shot. Bending at the knees is important for keeping the weight on the balls of your feet.

Some goalie coaches have their goalies stand up on their toes. But this is a bad habit to develop because it makes goalies fall forward as the shooter is releasing the ball and does not give them as much time to react. Bending your knees takes weight off your feet. However, goalie is a position that requires you to find what works best for you individually. Ideally, a coach should simply give you options and let you figure out what’s most comfortable.

Third, the goalie’s back should be as straight as possible so as to take up the most surface area. Your arms should be extended away from your body and the hands should be chest-width apart on your shaft, with the top hand being right below the plastic of the head. If your hands are too close together, you won’t have enough control of the stick. If your hands are too far apart, your hand movements will be too slow and the stick will not get across your body fast enough to make saves effectively.

You want to have your hands on the same plane in order to keep the stick square to the shot. All your stick movements should stay on the same plane as though the stick is being rotated on a window. By keeping your hands and stick away from your body, you never get the stick caught or hung up on your helmet or body and it rotates freely. You can work on your stance by looking at yourself in the mirror.

You should feel comfortable sitting in your stance for minutes at a time and should not move at all when you’re in your stance as the shooter is winding up. This is important, as it is easier to react to the ball when you are completely still. Goalies should always know where the ball is and be ready to react to a shot, make a save and distribute the ball.

POSITIONING

The question that I probably get asked the most at camps and clinics is, ‘Why do you play so far back on the goalline?’ My whole life I was taught to play this way by my father, Bill Tierney, who coached some of the best goalies of all-time, including Larry Quinn, Quint Kessenich and Scott Bacigalupo. I figured if playing that far back (or what is called a “flat-arc”) worked for them, it would work for me as well.

It is important to note that I am not saying that playing a flat-arc is the right way. Every goalie is different and you need to find a style that suits you best. When I watch Cattrano (who I feel is the best goalie in the world right now and maybe ever), I’m amazed by how he can play so far out of the goal. The reason he’s able to do this is because he’s incredibly quick. It is interesting, though, that in some of his best games (like this year’s MLL Championship Game), he makes a lot of saves when he is back on the goalline. Each goalie has to assess his/her own athletic abilities and decide how to play from there.

The two main reasons that playing a flat-arc is an effective way to play goalie is that it gives you more time to react and it always keeps you in good position. Lacrosse goalie is one of the hardest positions in all of sports. Playing back on the goalline simplifies this position.

Lacrosse players are shooting extremely hard these days with the new stick technology that is available. The average shooter in college lacrosse now probably shoots right around 90 mph and I won’t be surprised if this number continues to increase. As a result, you need to give yourself as much time to react as possible. By sitting back in the goal, it gives you enough time to react to any shot, no matter how hard or how close.

When I was playing at Princeton, there were some days in warmups when Coach Dave Metzbower would be lighting me up. I’d ask him what he thought was wrong and he would immediately tell me that I had crept up one or two inches from the goalline. I’d move back an inch and save everything. Just an inch or two can make a world of difference when you’re trying to save 90 to 100 mph shots.

The other benefit to playing a flat-arc is that it always keeps you in good position. Many coaches argue that a goalie should play a high arc and take away angle from the shooter. This theory stems primarily from hockey goalies. However, lacrosse goals are six feet by six feet and lacrosse goalies do not wear many pads—as opposed to hockey, where a goalie can take away much of a shooter’s angle by coming far out of the goal.

Many goalies that play a high-arc (playing very far out of the goal), usually get lost when moving from pipe to pipe. This ends up putting them in bad position and allows them to get beat on shots that should not go in. It also leaves them vulnerable to getting beat on feeds and cross-crease passes. Playing a flat-arc makes it easy to move quickly from pipe to pipe.

Finally, playing back in the goal allows you to take up a lot of room. One thing that goalies do not get any credit for is making shooters miss. When you’re in good position and taking up a lot of room in the goal, shooters will get picky with their shots and miss more often. You will know you’re in good position and in other players’ heads when they start missing a lot of shots.

Playing a flat-arc is very simple to learn. However, you should realize that it may feel a little uncomfortable at first and might take some time to get accustomed to. The main thing you must concentrate on is keeping your hips square to the shooter. When the ball is directly at the top center of the field, you want to have both heels barely touching the goalline. As the ball moves to the top left, you need to take tiny steps, keeping your left foot on the goalline and bringing your right foot up a few inches. Picture two lines coming out of your shoulders and pointing toward the shooter, like a target. Both of these techniques allow you to keep your body square to the shooter. The further down the left side of the field the ballcarrier gets, the further over you should get your left foot to the pipe while keeping it on the goalline, and the higher your right foot should come off the goalline.

Many young goalies go to the pipe way too soon. Right when the ballcarrier starts sweeping to the left side of the field, goalies get their left foot on the pipe. This leaves the whole right side of the goal open. Goalies have to realize that when shooters sweep from the center to the left side of the field with the stick in their right hand, that they want to shoot across their body and to the right side of the goal. Goalies can help themselves by staying more toward the middle of the goal until the shooter gets far to one side or the other. If you make small movements and keep the shooter between the two imaginary lines pointing out of your shoulders, you’ll be in good position. If you feel like you have to take a huge step to save the ball, you’re probably out of position—same if you feel like you could not get to a shot that went in.

Your philosophy should be to make it as easy on yourself and as hard on the shooter as possible. Being in good position back on the goalline does both.

SAVING THE BALL

Obviously, the most important job for the goalie is to save the ball. The first thing that a coach has to do is get the goalie to see the ball. Many young goalies move too soon. As a coach, you can distinguish many of your goalies’ bad habits by faking shots at them during warmups. Ideal goalies won’t flinch or move when a shot is faked because they’re waiting for the ball to be released before they react.

Many young goalies have tendencies that they show when a shot is faked at them. Some have a “false step” to either the left or right. This means that no matter where the ball is going, on every shot they take a step in either direction before they react to the ball. Another bad tendency that young goalies have is dropping the stick as the shooter winds up. Many goalies fall forward as the shooter winds up and get themselves off balance. All of these bad habits obviously take away from reaction time and keep you from saving the ball.

Stepping to the ball has long been thought as the most important skill to teach goalies. I believe in a much more minimalist approach in movement. Does a baseball player ever move toward the ball when he’s trying to make contact? No. Does a tennis player ever run forward as he’s hitting the ball? Not unless he has to. Moving toward a ball as it comes at you makes it harder to react. A goalie should not step toward a ball. If the ball is coming right at you, you can simply make a stick save. If the ball is going to one side or the other, you can take a horizontal step to get your body across. The traditional way of thinking teaches goalies to get their bodies behind the ball in case they miss it with their stick. This new way of thinking makes goalies learn to get their stick on the ball as much as possible.

Basically, you should draw an imaginary square around yourself in your stance. If the ball is shot directly inside that square, you just react with your stick. If it is outside of that square, you just step horizontally. To step to one side, you want to push off your back foot as if you were ice skating. So if you’re stepping to your left, you want to push off and explode off your right foot. To go to the right, explode off your left foot. This is much more efficient and powerful than stepping with one foot and dragging the other one across.

To know which way you have to step, draw a line down the middle of your body. If the ball goes to the left of that line, step to your left. If the ball is to the right of it, step to your right.

The movement of the stick is based on where the ball is shot. If the ball is shot stick-side high, simply keep your stick up and catch the ball. Surprisingly, this is a tough shot for goalies because they tend to drop their sticks as the shooter winds up. If the ball is shot off-stick-side high, bring your top hand over your bottom hand to get the stick head across your body. Young goalies should first learn to catch passes off-stick-side high for practice, because they tend to “stab” their sticks at the ball on this shot. They need to be reminded to keep their stick head flat on the pane of glass in front of them and catch the ball like an egg.

On stick-side hip shots, lower the head of your stick to your hip to catch the ball. On off-stick-side hip, bring the stick across your body by dropping the stick head to your hip and then getting it across. Due to the distance of this movement, it’s the hardest shot for goalies at all levels to save. On stick-side-low shots, simply drop the head of your stick and try to get it perpendicular to the ground. On off-stick-side low shots, do the same thing, only get your stick to the other side of your feet. On all low shots, it is ideal to have your stick perpendicular and stabbed into the ground so the ball does not sneak underneath.